Successful ecosystems research

Year 6 students visited the Ahuriri estuary for a field trip to learn more about ecosystems. We had the awesome teachers from the national aquarium of N.Z. to help us on the day. We discovered sea life and the important features of an estuary.

When we returned to school we set up our own ecosystems in the classroom and worked out what they required. Our class watched how successfully the plants grew and critically analysed WHY they were or were NOT growing well.

We all had to choose an ecosystem to research and present our findings to the class. After two or three weeks of research, planning, presenting and conferencing, we were ready to share our ideas. Look on the next post to check out some of our work.
Here are some photos of our Ahuriri Estuary trip.

Yeast in progress

Today in class we have looked at experiments on yeast and we put sugar and warm water plus yeast and shook it up and stuck a balloon on top. We have waited about 15 minutes and the balloon has risen a little. This is what it looks like now after 15 minutes. The yeast, sugar and warm water has reacted and made carbon dioxide.
We wondered if it would work with different temperatures of water, or different types of sugar....
Maybe we can try out these experiments sometime.

Blog posted by Mark, Gus, Jack and Fischer.

Making Brilliant Bread

Our class decided to make bread for maths because we had to measure everything that we put in and make sure the temperature was right because otherwise the bread wouldn't rise or taste as good as it did.

We also made little bread rolls in groups.Here is how we made them,
First we put all the ingredients in a bowl and mixed in together. Then we put flour on the bench and kneaded it. After that we waited about an hour for it to rise then we split it into how many people there are in the group and kneaded the little roll a bit more.
We waited a bit more for the bread to rise some more then we put the rolls in the oven and cooked them for 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Blogged by Charlotte and Laura

Fractional Symmetrical Name Bugs

One wet day, we did art. We had our name written in old fashioned script writing on one half of the paper. We folded it in half and traced the writing onto the other side. Our job was to make sure it was the same on both sides - with a line of symmetry reflecting the left side with the right. We outlined the writing thickly in black crayon. Next we chose colours and designs to make the patterns on our name bug. Some looked like alien creatures! As we finished and took it to Mrs Field to be checked, we were allowed to use dye on the background. Here are our results.

Fraction Action

We have been doing lots of fractions work and our understanding is developing well. Some boys did a dominoes puzzle to find equivalent fractions, others made models of how to show 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/5 or 3/4 in different ways, using equipment.
We completed an activity called Granny's Rug. The rug was too big for Granny's hallway so our job was to cut it and show different ways it could fit. It helped us explain our fractional reasoning and show our thinking. We are getting better at giving a whole lot of different answers. We all explained our thinking on the data projector screen.

Inter school Swimming Sports

The best swimmers from all of the local schools attended the Interschool Swimming Sports on Monday 18th February. All our students swam very well, competing well with the best from Te Mata, Lucknow, Clive and Hereworth. We had huge support from our school parents. Mr Kinsey did a great job on the microphone, Mrs McNeill coped well with all the names at the recording table and Mrs Field kept all the children under control by getting them to the marshalling area on time.